Filed under: Dealing, Inspiration, Rest Days, The Race | Tags: days off, healing, marathon, running, struggle
I haven’t done any running. It was a relief for a while, and I’m still enjoying the time off, though I think it’s time to get back out there. I saw a few runners going along the Charles yesterday, and I felt a little itch.
Besides, I’ve officially signed up for the Philadelphia Marathon. It’s seven months away.
I guess it’s time to attack The Question, though. I started this blog a little over nine months ago, when I could barely see myself each day for the sadness and brokenness in my heart. The marathon was a goal, something to strive for, a path through the valley. Something that would make me strong. A goal to help me find me again.
I’m afraid to write this. Deep breath – type. Have I healed?
You can’t know this, but I just sat here for a few minutes, trying to decide what to type and how to type it. Because, you know, I would love to write a resounding, beautiful, uplifting paragraph, something that will raise up my readers in a shout of congratulatory glee, a big, loud, shining YES!
But I must give you the honesty you deserve, as loyal readers and friends who have followed my journey. The answer is no – at least, not entirely.
Hear me out, though. Let me tell you what training for a marathon does. Let me tell you about discovering the strength within myself and, even more importantly, the strength beyond myself. Let me tell you about a new steel and softness that I feel within me. It is as if my path to the marathon were lined with fruit trees, and as I ran I picked their fruit and tasted their fresh newness. Joy, strength, courage. Yes, I have courage now, and I do not think it wrong to assert this.
I still have battles to fight. I still have walls to break down. The journey to healing is not over. But now – now I have the tools I need. So in a sense, I suppose I am healed: I’m my own person again, and I think I always was; running just helped me discover that. But I’m a stronger person now. I’m more at peace with the present now. I know I have what it takes to keep going. I’m a marathoner.
What Now?
I have seven months to train for the Philadelphia Marathon, and this time I’ll have people to train with. My friends S and A will be making Philly their first marathon, and I’m very excited to “mentor” them. The real training won’t begin until late July, so there will be time for them to build their base mileage – and time for me to relax a little! I’ll still be running, but I’ll just be concentrating on maintaining my own base. I might do a couple of small races. There’s a nice little series along the Charles River this summer, mostly five-milers. Perhaps I can even get a little faster!
I was planning on closing this blog after the Marathon was complete, but so many people have been reading it that I may keep it open. Besides, I have had a little idea brewing for the past week. I’ve been thinking of starting a small, informal running club. Not everyone who goes through heartbreak has as strong a support group as I; perhaps I can provide it for them. It’s just a wisp of an idea, and nothing may come of it. But check back here every once in a while. Especially if you live in Boston.
It grows late, though. I have a lot to do tonight, especially since I’m getting up early tomorrow. I’m going running with J, just a little three-miler, slow and leisurely, before breakfast. I can’t wait to feel the road under my feet again, hear the quiet padding of my sneakers on the pavement, feel the soft spring breeze, like a sigh, against my cheeks.
Filed under: Dealing, Inspiration | Tags: family, fight, friends, healing, marathon
I didn’t run the Boston Marathon, obviously, but I did pace C for the last three miles. As a thank you gift, she got me a color-changing mug with pigs on it, and a bottle of jam under the label, “When Pigs Fly.”
I should have written this entry sooner, but one of the big events of this coming weekend (oh. mygosh.), besides the marathon, of course, is the five-year reunion of my closest group of college girlfriends. We’ve all kept in touch through the years, but not until now will we all be in one room again. Some of us are married. Some of us have babies. All of us have changed. But they’re coming, and they’re coming because I asked them to, flying from California and New York and New Jersey and Texas and Indiana to be there for me at the finish line, there for whatever change will happen in my life, big or small, after running this race.
I’ve said that running saved my life, and it has, but the people who really saved me were – and are – my friends and family. They’ve spent as many hours on the phone with me as I’ve spent in my old Asics. They’ve cried with me, hugged me, sent me cards and gifts, distracted me with trips and activities, talked when I needed them to talk and said nothing when I didn’t want to hear it. They’ve donated money to my charity. One of them is even running with me for the last six miles of the race.
When your heart breaks, nothing and no one can take away the pain. It’s like a deep, black ocean, squeezing and churning, wave after towering wave breaking upon you, unending. But even in the darkest of times, when even breathing hurt because of the sadness, they were there, the people that love me, a life buoy in the wrenching expanse, floating through the dark, and I held on for dear life. And I did not sink.
I did not sink.
Filed under: Dealing, Inspiration, The Race, Training Runs | Tags: good advice, Inspiration, marathon, nerves, running, short run
It’s going to be that kind of week. Working at a running store in Boston means that when April begins, you don’t slow down until a week after the Boston Marathon is over. If you’re training for a marathon yourself, that means you succumb quietly, with barely a whimper, to insanity.
(Tangent: Has anyone ever noticed – at least those who’ve been to my city – that if you tell a Bostonite you’re running a Spring race other than the Boston Marathon, people look slightly bewildered? They get that same perturbed, sort of Linus-y worried look that I imagine people had when they found out the world wasn’t flat. Ok, end of tangent.)
Anyway, I was talking to a fellow coworker and runner about marathoning today. She asked me if I had a reason for running, because it’s always the reason, the mental resolve, that gets you through the last six miles. Nothing can prepare you for what it’s really like to run the Marathon, she said, but you’ll do it because you have a reason. What’s your reason? she wanted to know.
I usually don’t share things like that with coworkers anymore. I’ve learned well and hard that keeping things separate from work, keeping your own dirty laundry and your own secrets, your own emotional highs, middles, and lows, protects you in some way. You’re not as vulnerable. You’re not as open to judgment. But something made me tell her, at least a very brief and spare version.
“I just got chills,” she said. ”You know how I know you’ll finish? Because no matter how hard it is, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you want to stop running, you’ll remember that what you’re feeling during those last six miles is nothing compared to what you’ve already lived through. You’ve already survived something far harder than a marathon. Let that thought take you to the end.”
Filed under: Dealing | Tags: memories, recovery runs, sadness, short run, struggle
I’ve only recently started doing recovery runs. I went on one tonight. Just a mile or two, at an easy pace, to be done the day after a long run. It’s supposed to help the muscles heal faster by increasing blood flow to the affected areas. So far, it really has been helping. I’ve felt less stiff, less sore, less tired.
Tonight was the first warm night in many months. I put on a pair of capris and a long-sleeve shirt, covered my ears with a hat. The breeze was cool against my face. I sailed, gently. Feet like rudders on the ground. Breath like the slow swish of waves.
It was warm when he left me. Now it’s warm again.
Filed under: Dealing, The Race, Training Runs | Tags: fueling, gu, hills, long run, running, v-day
Kept busy yesterday. Slept in. Attempted to go out for brunch with a friend, gave up, went home and made pancakes. Napped. Ran twelve miles. Stuck my feet in a bucket of ice and watched Criminal Minds for a few hours with my roommate.
The twelve-miler was quite good. I went at night, taking as straight a line as I could to downtown Boston and back. It was one of the better there-and-back routes I’ve taken, with a couple of challenges in the middle: two long, steep hills right before the turn-around – good training for the Pig. There was quite a bit of wind on the way back, and I seemed to hit almost every red light, but I’m quite satisfied with how the run went, as a whole.
I’ll have to keep an eye on my ankles, today. Everything’s a bit stiff, but I can’t detect any actual pain, knock on wood.
On a semi-related note, cold chocolate Gu is delicious. It tastes exactly like brownie batter! I think I’ve found my race fuel.
